i wonder how some of these raiders would feel if an activity that they didn't enjoy was forced in order to do the MSQ. "in order to complete 5.4 you must have 3 crafters and 2 gather classes raised to max level"
Raiders are more likely to complain about the other way around, honestly -- needing to do MSQ before they can do the latest raids.

Anyway, if it didn't make sense for the story progression to require those things, people would probably (rightfully) complain.

But the Crystal Tower is an aspect of SB2's story, and presumably will play an integral role in the finale (5.3). It gets acknowledged at the end of 5.0 if you've already completed it. It isn't nonsensical to require the completion of those raids. Honestly, the only real flaw is that it wasn't already required to begin with, because it does seem a little bit strange to suddenly require it now, but I think the devs/Yoshi were already aware of this from SB2's beginning and they were just trying to be lenient about it until getting to this point where the ongoing story really wouldn't work without its completion.